Friday, January 02, 2009
Newspeak
First, from the Guardian. The very first sentence under the main headline on the front page says: "Ministers are planning to force GPs to improve their performance by posting patients' comments about them on an NHS website". The Guardian seems to have fallen for the performance management fad which is overwhelming the professional world, or rather for that sub-fad the adherents of which believe that all good flows from performance measurement, in this case the sort of measurement dished out by the great unwashed who frequent GP surgeries. Or rather that sub-set of said great unwashed who have made it down to Comet for an Internet (aka porn) capable laptop and who have the time to play. Also bearing in mind that a large proportion of the visitors to GPs are seeking help with issues that one might have thought not worthy of expensive GP time. Like being lonely or having a sore throat.
Now while it is reasonable that we manage the performance of GPs, I am not at all sure that having all and sundry post stuff on the Internet is the way forward. If I was a hard working and conscientious GP, I would not want to have to spend time dealing with unfounded and frivilous tripe in the public domain. I became a GP to heal people, not to do publicity. An occasional thank you letter would nice, and I hope I would be sensible about the occasional letter of complaint. But to have all comers at it in public is another matter. When I was in the world of work, my annual report was private between me, my management and the people, if any, with whom I cared to share it. Plus, of course, all those lovely people in the HR department. And that is how I think it should be. Discussing corporate performance in public is one thing; discussing the performance of individuals is quite another. Highly paid CEOs of public companies in trouble excepted.
So my take on all this is that Ministers might force GPs - or perhaps their PR assistants (all to be paid for out of the NHS budget, already so depleted by the GP settlement and the untold millions on IT systems (good money for the IT service providers for as long as they can get it)) - to spend more time footling around on the Internet. Whether or not that leads to a better service is another matter. But you are not going to force GPs to deliver a better service, and certainly not like this.
Second, from the DT, where there is a suggestion that New Labour are sufficiently careless about the acquisition of powers with which to boss us all about, that they do not have clear authority for the thousands of speed cameras which infest our roads. It seems that they had authority for experiments with them, many years ago, when they were new, but they have not gotten around to getting authority for going into mass production with them. Leaving aside whether one thinks that they are a good thing, it is not a good thing for a government to be careless about powers. With a pomposity, possibly born of excess consumption of something called whisky matt, something which we have not tried, let alone had in the house, for a long time, I would say that one of the piles on which our civil society rests is the notion that we are all equal before the law, including here both persons and corporate entities - like Tesco or HM Government. I thought we more or less did for the idea that there was a Royal Perogative when we topped Charles I. Therefore, if the government expects us governed to read, understand and obey all its rules, it should take care not to exceed its own powers. It is not that hard, with the docile House of Commons we have these days, for them to create more powers. So let them stick to the rules of their own making.
In the meantime, Franklin has still not got the hang of the cat flap in his house, but he has progressed to sitting rights in a large proportion of the downstairs of our house. He has tried walking on this keyboard, at which point I had to be firm, but he is presently content to be lying on FIL's dining chair (one of several FIL chairs) while grooming himself. But attempting to sit between me and the keyboard provides a bit of fun from time to time. He also seems to have lost his collar, so we no longer get a friendly jingle advertising his impending presence. I wonder how he came to lose it.
And now time to return to the cooking of the special wholesome lentils from Waitrose which the packet assures me can be used in place of puy lentils. They look like a rather shabby version of the things simply sold as puy lentils. Same size, shape and colour, but a little shabby. The idea for them to be the vehicle to use up some of the festive gammon hanging over from the recent festivities. We have had two or three goes of it cold now; time to move on. And soup, in this cold weather, albeit not so cold today as it was earlier in the week, is always a good thing.
Now while it is reasonable that we manage the performance of GPs, I am not at all sure that having all and sundry post stuff on the Internet is the way forward. If I was a hard working and conscientious GP, I would not want to have to spend time dealing with unfounded and frivilous tripe in the public domain. I became a GP to heal people, not to do publicity. An occasional thank you letter would nice, and I hope I would be sensible about the occasional letter of complaint. But to have all comers at it in public is another matter. When I was in the world of work, my annual report was private between me, my management and the people, if any, with whom I cared to share it. Plus, of course, all those lovely people in the HR department. And that is how I think it should be. Discussing corporate performance in public is one thing; discussing the performance of individuals is quite another. Highly paid CEOs of public companies in trouble excepted.
So my take on all this is that Ministers might force GPs - or perhaps their PR assistants (all to be paid for out of the NHS budget, already so depleted by the GP settlement and the untold millions on IT systems (good money for the IT service providers for as long as they can get it)) - to spend more time footling around on the Internet. Whether or not that leads to a better service is another matter. But you are not going to force GPs to deliver a better service, and certainly not like this.
Second, from the DT, where there is a suggestion that New Labour are sufficiently careless about the acquisition of powers with which to boss us all about, that they do not have clear authority for the thousands of speed cameras which infest our roads. It seems that they had authority for experiments with them, many years ago, when they were new, but they have not gotten around to getting authority for going into mass production with them. Leaving aside whether one thinks that they are a good thing, it is not a good thing for a government to be careless about powers. With a pomposity, possibly born of excess consumption of something called whisky matt, something which we have not tried, let alone had in the house, for a long time, I would say that one of the piles on which our civil society rests is the notion that we are all equal before the law, including here both persons and corporate entities - like Tesco or HM Government. I thought we more or less did for the idea that there was a Royal Perogative when we topped Charles I. Therefore, if the government expects us governed to read, understand and obey all its rules, it should take care not to exceed its own powers. It is not that hard, with the docile House of Commons we have these days, for them to create more powers. So let them stick to the rules of their own making.
In the meantime, Franklin has still not got the hang of the cat flap in his house, but he has progressed to sitting rights in a large proportion of the downstairs of our house. He has tried walking on this keyboard, at which point I had to be firm, but he is presently content to be lying on FIL's dining chair (one of several FIL chairs) while grooming himself. But attempting to sit between me and the keyboard provides a bit of fun from time to time. He also seems to have lost his collar, so we no longer get a friendly jingle advertising his impending presence. I wonder how he came to lose it.
And now time to return to the cooking of the special wholesome lentils from Waitrose which the packet assures me can be used in place of puy lentils. They look like a rather shabby version of the things simply sold as puy lentils. Same size, shape and colour, but a little shabby. The idea for them to be the vehicle to use up some of the festive gammon hanging over from the recent festivities. We have had two or three goes of it cold now; time to move on. And soup, in this cold weather, albeit not so cold today as it was earlier in the week, is always a good thing.
# posted by Jim @ 6:14 AM 
